The CBS broadcast
network is justly infamous for its swath of gory crime dramas like C.S.I.,
C.S.I. New York, C.S.I. Miami and others. These shows are awash in blood and
entrails, and are often charged with depraved sexual tensions as well. Rare is
the episode of C.S.I. in which the murder under investigation does not
involve or in some way touch upon rape, prostitution, child molestation, sadism
or some other unsavory form of sex.

However, production
on these programs will soon come to a standstill, due to the ongoing TV writer’s
strike. One might think that, given that all his bloody crime dramas on CBS are
going on hiatus, CBS President Les Moonves might consider some other kind of
programming. But one would be wrong. Instead, Moonves has announced that CBS
will be importing programs from sibling premium cable network Showtime to fill
the gap. Among those programs will be Weeds, about a drug-dealing
housewife, and Dexter, a show about a heroic serial killer.

You read that
right: on Showtime’s Dexter, the hero of the program is a serial killer.
The viewer is apparently supposed to cheer for Dexter, because he only kills
murderers or other criminals such as pedophiles. On the program, Dexter’s father
– a police officer – teaches Dexter how to commit his murders: how to drain his
victim’s corpses of blood, how to dispose of bodies, and generally how to evade
the law. And after each murder, Dexter charmingly keeps a copy of each victim’s
DNA, in the form of blood.

If it is shown on
CBS, Dexter would be only the most recent example of such “repurposing.”
Used to describe the recycling or rerunning of programming from one format to
another, “repurposing” has long been a key component in the sometimes cozy,
sometimes fractious relationship between broadcast and cable television.

For many years, and
even today, “repurposing” referred primarily to the practice of broadcast
networks sending their most recently-aired episodes into immediate reruns on
cable. Generally this was done between networks owned by the same corporate
entity: FX reran Fox’s Family Guy, ABC Family reran ABC’s Whose Line
Is It Anyway?, and USA (owned by NBC-Universal) reran NBC’s Law & Order.
This practice helped fill in programming on the often-barren cable network
landscape, while giving favorite network series more exposure.

But today, the tide
is beginning to flow in the opposite direction. Cable networks today are
increasingly home to more graphically violent and sexually explicit original
programming – programming often laden as well with truly astonishing amounts of
profanity. Naturally, television critics are hopelessly infatuated with these
rancid shows, lauding their “dark,” “edgy,” and “mature” themes (as though there
is something “mature” about subjects and language which delight adolescents). In
the incestuously insular world of television production, however, praise from
“the critics” is the ultimate compliment. And if a program, however tawdry to
the vast majority of television viewers, attracts even a couple of hundred
thousand viewers, it is considered an overwhelming success. In these
circumstances, the corporate ownership looks for ways to turn small hits drawing
tiny numbers on cable into bigger hits drawing millions of viewers on broadcast
TV.

This process has
already been performed on some of the most extreme programming cable has
produced. HBO’s Sex and the City, with its unbelievably raunchy dialogue,
was first “repurposed” to TNT -- at 9:00 p.m. ET. And since that time, it has
entered broadcast syndication, airing in many different markets.

The same course has
been pursued by FX’s incredibly violent police drama The Shield.
Originally airing at 10:00 p.m. ET on cable, it too has now entered broadcast
syndication, being run at a variety of times by various local stations. A&E
(the former “Arts and Entertainment” network) made headlines earlier this year
when it gained the rights to “repurpose” HBO’s brutal and repellent Mafia drama
The Sopranos. A&E showed this program too at 9:00 p.m. And just months
ago, NewsCorp “repurposed” several episodes of its gory FX drama Damages
onto the broadcast MyNetworkTV at 8:00 p.m. ET.

In each case
mentioned above, the networks involved promised – cross their hearts and hope to
die! – that every episode would be carefully scrutinized and scrubbed clean of
any violence, sex, language or dialogue which might even possibly contravene
broadcast decency standards…with predictable results. In side-by-side
comparisons of the cable originals with the broadcast reruns, the PTC found
practically no difference in content.

There are three
negative consequences to the “repurposing” of explicit cable content to
broadcast TV. First and most obviously, it creates the possibility that any TV
viewer anywhere – adult, teen or child – might be exposed to disturbing and
explicit content. So long as Dexter, The Sopranos and other such programs
remained confined to premium cable, this was not a concern; adults who enjoyed
such programming could order it, while viewers who would find it disgusting or
disturbing were not forced to pay for it, or ever see it. But under
“repurposing” viewers will increasingly find their homes being flooded with ever
more extreme programming.

Secondly, such
“repurposing” makes a joke of America’s broadcast indecency laws. Broadcasters
do not own the airwaves – the American people do. Broadcasters are granted
licenses and allowed to use the airwaves, so long as they operate “in the public
interest,” as required by law. But in their arrogance, the multi-billionaire
network owners pooh-pooh the law, claiming that if viewers are offended by the
use to which the public property is being put, they should just “change the
channel.” By “repurposing” programming which is created for premium cable --
programming which is intended to operate on a restricted-to-adults pay network,
and which is deliberately written to incorporate ideas inappropriate for
children and which many adult viewers would find unsavory or offensive – the
broadcast network bosses are defiantly ignoring the laws which the majority of
Americans find desirable.

Thirdly, and
perhaps most disturbingly, by putting extreme and graphic drama on broadcast TV,
programmers are deliberately “raising the stakes.” One has only to look at the
programming filling movie theaters and TV screens today to see that this “upping
the ante” is already happening. Allowing adult premium cable programs like
Dexter to be “repurposed” onto broadcast TV will serve only the purposes of
television’s greedy and arrogant bosses…not those of the American people.

TV Trends: This column was compiled from reports by the
Parents Television Council’s Analysis staff: Aubree Bowling, Caroline
Schulenburg, Josh Shirlen, and Adam Shuler, under the direction of Dr. John Rattliff.

Parents Television Council,
www.parentstv.org, PTC,
Clean Up TV Now, Because our children are watching, The
nation's most influential advocacy organization, Protecting
children against sex, violence and profanity in
entertainment, Parents Television Council Seal of Approval,
and Family Guide to Prime Time Television
are trademarks of the Parents Television Council.